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APRN Alaska News

Get Alaska statewide news from the stations of the Alaska Public Radio Network (APRN). With a central news room in Anchorage and contributing reporters spread across the state, we capture news in the Voices of Alaska and share it with the world. Tune in to your local APRN station in Alaska, visit us online at APRN.ORG or subscribe to the Alaska News podcast right here. These are individual news stories, most of which appear in Alaska News Nightly (available as a separate podcast).

The Haines Borough Police Department and dispatch services could face a dramatic funding loss under Gov. Bill Walker’s proposed budget. It would eliminate funding the state Department of Corrections, or DOC, gives each year to law enforcement in 15 small communities. That funding is meant to help communities run local jails, but in Haines it supports more than that.

The Alaska DOC contracts with Haines police to operate a three-cell, six-bed jail. Under that contract, the DOC gave the Haines Police Department about $392,000 this year.

That money is meant to help run the local jail, where people who are arrested are held for short periods of time. But the state allotment funds more than just the jail. It made up 40 percent of the police department and dispatch’s entire budgets this year.

So, if the DOC were to cut the community jails money, the Haines Police Department could lose almost half of its funding. Police Chief Bill Musser says that loss could shut down the jail, and it could also mean downsizing the five-officer, five-dispatcher departments.

“Ultimately the cuts may reduce staffing in both dispatch and in terms of the officers,” Musser said.

A map of current community jails and DOC corrections facilities.

Department of Corrections Deputy Commissioner Remond Henderson says they’re learning that communities might rely on the state funding more than the DOC realized.

“We are not surprised at the fact that communities are coming forward and saying this will have an impact,” Henderson said. “We did not know what the extent of the impact would be.”

The community jails contracts cost the DOC about $10.5 million this year. Southeast communities that would be affected are Haines, Petersburg, Wrangell, Sitka and Craig. There are two DOC-run corrections facilities in Southeast where inmates can serve out longer sentences – in Juneau and Ketchikan.

Henderson says the governor has charged DOC with a general fund budget reduction of eight percent effective July 1. Zeroing out the community jails funding would take care of about 40 percent of that reduction. Henderson notes they’re also looking at how to cut costs at larger corrections facilities.

One reason the DOC is considering this cut is because a number of community jail beds go empty. Henderson says of the about 157 beds in the 15 jails, only half are filled on average each night. In Haines, that number is even lower. Of the six beds in the Haines jail, Henderson says on average only one is used per day.

Chief Musser says that shows that crime is low in Haines. But the jail is still important.

“We may only occupy one bed, that’s nice in terms of the community, but we still have to be able to hold them there when we do have a problem.”

The Haines jail is classified as a Rural Jail Facility. It serves not only Haines police arrests, but Skagway police, state troopers, federal border agents and Coast Guard.

Musser says the jail held a total of 58 inmates throughout 2014. Inmates can serve up to 14 days in the jail.

“Most of the misdemeanors we get here are usually short, simple sentences,” Musser said. “For instance, anywhere for three upwards to 10 days for a DUI depending on the level of the DUI.”

Not having a local jail could mean people who are sentenced to serve even a short amount of time would go to Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau.

Walker’s proposed budget will likely go through a number of revisions before gaining the state legislature’s approval. The final budget will be decided in May. Meanwhile, Henderson says the DOC is reaching out to communities to see what kind of fallout the funding cuts would cause.

Since the funding makes up 40 percent of the Haines Police Department and dispatch’s budgets, Musser says he’ll work with other police chiefs to voice their opposition to the cuts.

“It’s gonna affect operations and it could affect personnel,” Musser said. “And it may well impact people’s ability to visit or have contact with people in the jail, so they’re gonna spend more money to make their visitations by having to travel. I think it’s gonna increase cost to the state because of travel. But bottom line for us is it may impact our services because we may have to reduce if we have moneys that we’re used to using that are no longer available.”

Musser says if they have to let go police officer or dispatchers because of the funding cut, it wouldn’t just impact the jail. It would impact the police’s community services as whole.

Haines Borough Manager Dave Sosa says this is the largest potential cut to Haines funding he’s seen in Walker’s proposed budget. If it goes through, Sosa says Haines will either have to lose some police services or figure out a way to make up for the funding loss.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough Schools superintendent says the district is facing a budget shortfall of up to $11 million in the coming school year. Karen Gaborik says that will require the district to eliminate more than 60 jobs.

When Mike Ellis arrived in Dawson City, he had no idea what his place was.

“Art the beginning of the race I said I thought I’d be lucky to be even in the top-15 with the field and the names that this race had,” he said.

Ellis has started the Quest six times, but he has only finished three.

“This is the first Quest I’ve ever run where I didn’t’ have a schedule written down in my book, where I didn’t have definitive plan of what I was going to do,” Ellis said. “I really just wanted to put my blinders on and just focus on my dog team and I think that’s served me very well so far.”

French Canadian Normand Casavant had a similar attitude headed into the race.

“I just want to have a happy run and I let my dogs go and if I’m having a nice race and a competitive one, that’s life that’s going to give it to me and that’s maybe what’s happened right now,” Casavant said.

Last year, a case of shingles cut Casavant’s race short. He says the experience changed his perspective, but there are some things that never change.

Casavant is known as the singing musher, and that’s what he did when he realized he was running right on the heels of Cody Strathe.

“As we climbed up King Solomon’s Dome, the snow got deeper and deeper and my leaders got really excited to break trail and were just flying,” he said.

Strathe also came to finish what he started last year. In 2014, he had to scratch from the race with just over 100 miles to go. He says the early part of the race was tough, but he was encouraged when what started as a slow slog just outside Dawson City turned into a high point for his team.

“We got up on top and they were busting into drifts and bouncing through and we’d stop and the whole team’s tails would be wagging,” Strathe said.

The top-10 teams are likely to cross the Canada-Alaska border today. They’ve come just over halfway, but there’s still 400 miles of rough trail ahead before they reach the finish in Fairbanks.

James Hoagland learned the art of wig making while performing as a drag queen for eight years. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)

James Hoagland is in the business of wigs. Not just your ordinary costume and fashion wigs – his are specifically for drag queens. He spends hours styling hair and stitching it into wig caps. Last year, he sold 300 mostly to clients in the Lower 48 and internationally.

“The best wig name is Sandy Pecan Avalanche, which is exactly what you’d imagine it to look like,” Hoagland said.

James Hoagland made wigs at home before opening his studio in Downtown Juneau November 2014. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)

Despite such enticing names, most of Hoagland’s business is custom.

On this day he’s re-creating Elsa’s hair from the Disney movie “Frozen.” Usually, for character wigs, Hoagland has a picture to work off of, but he doesn’t need one in this case. He’s already made eight other Elsa wigs.

“One thing with drag queens is they’re very tied to pop culture and their shows are better when they are doing the latest song or the latest character from the hit movie,” he said.

Hoagland starts off with a manufactured blond wig about three feet long. It cost him about $30 and when he’s done styling it, he’ll sell it for $120.

James Hoagland’s goal is to make 360 wigs this year. He made 41 in January and has about 30 booked for February. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)

Of everything it takes to be a drag queen – the makeup, shoes, costume, music…

“The wig will make or break you. It really will,” he said, laughing.

People watching drag queens are drawn to the face. The next focal point, Hoagland says, is the hair.

“If your wig looks horrible, people really won’t be able to focus on anything else, they’ll be staring at your ugly wig,” he said.

The reason that Hoagland knows so much about the drag queen business is because he is a drag queen. He’s not performing now but he spent 8 years touring the county singing in night clubs, casinos and theaters. He found stable work as a Liza Minelli impersonator. His drag name is Gigi Monroe, which is also the name of his wig business.

James Hoagland isn’t performing regularly as a drag queen, but still considers himself one. His drag name is Gigi Monroe. (Photo courtesy James Hoagland)

Hoagland says the very nature of being a drag queen is a paradox.

“You’re in a wig, you’re in pounds of makeup and heavy lashes and shoes and costumes that probably aren’t breathable fabrics,” Hoagland said. “All of those things make it incredibly uncomfortable and part of your job is to look like you are the most comfortable and the most at ease and you feel beautiful and glamorous when you might feel like a monster.”

Hoagland started his wig business the summer of 2013 on a cruise ship. He was a costume designer for Norwegian Cruise Lines on the Alaska route. He was interested in earning extra money and experimented with making a wig, something he’d gotten adept at as a queen. After he made one, he put it online.

“It sold in, like, three minutes,” Hoagland said.

So he kept at it, trying different styles and putting all the wigs on Facebook.

“I had a network of 5,000 drag queen friends from all over the world,” Hoagland said.

Because of cruise ship employee rules, like not taking things off the ship, Hoagland kept his wig business under the radar; he didn’t want people to think he was stealing. He received packages of hair in Seattle and mailed wigs out in Skagway.

“I would sneak them off the ship in these bags and I would have my friends who were dancers on the ship carry some of them and it was just hilarious and it was so much fun,” he said.

Hoagland ended up making 50 wigs. As he was doing that on the ship, off the ship, he was falling in love. He met his partner while in port in Juneau and had a date every time he returned. They would meet up for dinner, have coffee.

“We went on hikes, we went to the ice caves, just kind of got to know each other and he was really what I was looking for in a lot of ways,” he said.

The shelves in James Hoagland’s studio are filled with synthetic hairpieces and wigs. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)

Hoagland says his wig business allowed him to take some risks – on a relationship and on Juneau. So far, they’re both working out.

The secret to good drag queen hair is height, and more height. Hoagland says wigs for men just have to be bigger. Makeup and body curves should also be emphasized.

“Whereas you down play things like shoulders and hands and feet or height, things that make people look more masculine,” Hoagland said.

Sec. of State John Kerry’s agenda these days is dominated by the world’s hot spots: Iran, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski met with him this week to move his focus to a cold spot: the Arctic.

Corps. of Engineers Recommend Expanding Nome’s Deep-Water Arctic Port

Matthew Smith, KNOM – Nome

The U.S Army Corps of Engineers is set to unveil its first steps toward expanding deep-water Arctic ports, and Corps officials say the main focus will be expanding the existing Port of Nome.

Haines Police Department Faces Serious Shortfall In State Budget

Emily Files, KHNS – Haines

The Haines Borough Police Department and dispatch services could face a dramatic funding loss under Gov. Bill Walker’s proposed budget. It would eliminate funding the state Department of Corrections, or DOC, gives each year to law enforcement in 15 small communities. That funding is meant to help towns run local jails, but in Haines, it supports more than that.

Gov. Bill Walker has introduced legislation clarifying the powers of the attorney general when settling litigation related to Alaska’s oil and gas resources.

AVTEC Nursing Programs Cut

Ellen Lockyer, KSKA – Anchorage

AVTEC, the state’s vocational and technical school with campuses in Seward and Anchorage, will be losing programs due to the budget cuts.

Cuts Could Cost Fairbanks Schools Over 60 Jobs

Tim Ellis, KUAC – Fairbanks

The Fairbanks North Star Borough Schools superintendent says the district is facing a budget shortfall of up to $11 million in the coming school year. Karen Gaborik says that will require the district to eliminate more than 60 jobs.

Some Yukon Quest Teams Surprised To Find Themselves Among Top-10

Emily Schwing, KUAC – Fairbanks

Brent Sass is still leading the Yukon Quest by a wide margin. His closest competitor is Allen Moore, who is almost 8 hours behind.

From Frozen To Cover Girl, Drag Queen Style Hinges On Hair

Lisa Phu, KTOO – Juneau
James Hoagland is in the business of wigs. Not just your ordinary costume and fashion wigs – his are specifically for drag queens. He spends hours styling hair and stitching it into wig caps. Last year, he sold 300 mostly to clients in the Lower 48 and internationally. Hoagland does it all from a little studio in Juneau.

300 Villages: NondaltonThis week we’re heading to Nondalton, an Athabascan village on the edge of Lake Clark National Park. William Evanoff is president of the Nondalton Tribal Council.

Sec. of State John Kerry’s agenda these days is dominated by the world’s hot spots: Iran, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski met with him this week to move his focus to a cold spot: the Arctic.

The senator says Kerry isn’t entirely engaged in the far North, which Murkowski says is understandable.

“The secretary is very focused on issues as they relate to climate, so that aspect of the Arctic, I think it’s fair to say, he is engaged, ” she said after the meeting. “I don’t think that he has the bigger Arctic picture, the other Arctic pictures.”

Murkowski says she had about 40 minutes to draw his attention to the Arctic as a place where people live and need to make a living. She says she raised several issues related to commercial activity.

“One was the national security imperative for this country to make sure the trans-Alaska oil pipeline doesn’t get shut down because we lose throughput,” she said.

She also brought up transboundary mine concerns — the fear that Southeast Alaska salmon habitat could be damaged by large mines under development upriver in British Columbia. Murkowski says she and the rest of the Alaska delegation wrote Kerry’s department about it last year.

“And quite honestly, we’ve gotten nothing from the state department on this,” she said.

Kerry told her that, as a Massachusettsan, he was familiar with environmental problems drifting across the Canadian border. Murkowski says it seemed to register.

“He said, ‘I know full well what we’re talking about here and what the concerns would be from the residents of Alaska,’ so he said he would make sure that there was a new eye placed to it,” Murkowski recounted.

An official State Department photo of the meeting shows Robert Papp, the Department’s Arctic representative, attended, as did Secretary Kerry’s yellow lab, identified in the caption as “Ben the Diplomutt.”

Individual components of the final ocean acidification risk index for each census area showing the communities with the highest risk are in the Southeast and Southwest of the state. (Credit: NOAA)

Shellfish are particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification, and colder waters are becoming more acidic than warm waters. What does this mean for Alaska and its fisheries – especially crabs and oysters? Or for the food chain that feeds other species in the ocean? The answers are beginning to come in from the scientific world, and we’ll learn more about ocean acidification on the next Talk of Alaska.

In the process, Brent Sass gained time on rival Allen Moore, but there are still 400 miles of trail ahead and teams have to climb two more major summits.

This is the first time since 2011 that the Yukon Quest trail has followed the traditional route over American Summit. That year, Sass arrived in the checkpoint to relay a story about a dramatic rescue involving four-time champion Hans Gatt.

So, it was only fitting that Brent Sass had a yarn to spin when he arrived in Eagle, just after he descended the Summit.

“I got charged by another moose…,” he said.

Sass says he encountered a moose just as he came off the Forty Mile River to join the Taylor Highway.

“It literally just kept walking at us and I couldn’t do anything because if I would have taken my foot off the hooks, the dog team would have run right at it, so I was sort of crippled holding the dogs back,” Sass said.

The encounter is similar to one Sass had last year near Pelly Crossing Sass. He says this year, the moose kicked at his team.

“I was like ‘Oh God! My race is going to be over,” he said. “I’m going to have dogs hurt and everything, but they dodged it once again and I got a good look at the eye of a moose the second year in a row.”

Perhaps worse than a run-in with an angry moose is Sass’s anxiety about the team behind him.

“Every second that I go down the trail, I think that Allen’s going to catch me,” Sass said.

Sass left Dawson City six hours ahead of Allen Moore.

“There was like a time when he hadn’t even left Dawson yet and I was still looking over my shoulder, I was still looking down the trail going ‘ok, when’s his headlamp going to come?’ It’s not even mathematically possible!” he said.

Sass may not know exactly where his competition is on the trail, but there is one thing he is very sure of.

“It’s totally my race to lose at this point,” he said.

Teams have to take a mandatory six-hour layover in Eagle before the head back out on the trail toward Circle.

Sass left the checkpoint before Allen Moore even arrived, so he never got a look at the team ahead.

“His lead is substantial, but a lot of things can happen,” he said.

Moore decided to break up the 150 miles between Dawson and Eagle into three runs. Sass only did it in two.

“We had this plan made before the race. We just thought it would better hopefully that they would have a lot of energy and the end of the race,” he said.

Early on, Allen Moore says he intentional slowed his team.

“It was hard to slow them down,” Moore said. “It felt like we were going downhill all the time.”

He also added an extra six hours of rest before they arrived in Dawson, because of a rule change that decreased the mandatory layover there by 12 hours.

“None of us knew how the dogs were going react to it, so do I regret it?” Moore said. “You never know what the competition is going to do. You just have to make a plan and stick with it and hope it works out. Sometimes it does and sometimes it don’t.”

Moore’s strategy is risky. He’s hoping extra rest will turn into the kind of speed his team can use to catch Brent Sass. And, says Moore, there’s still Eagle Summit.

“Four years ago, I carried every dog to the top,” Moore said. “It took my eight hours and it was 30 mile an hour winds and blowing snow.”

The second of three major summits on the Alaska side of the trail is still roughly 250 miles away.

Today we’re discussing possible troop drawdowns in Alaska, part of the military’s broader reduction in overall size. Later this month, officials from the Defense Department and U.S. Army are visiting Anchorage and Fairbanks for listening sessions, to get a sense of what Forts Richardson and Wainwright mean to nearby communities. As well as how they fit into the broader mission of the American Armed Forces.

Right now, the Legislature is facing a deficit that some leaders are describing as a “$4 billion problem.” With oil prices half what they were a year ago, lawmakers are having to cut agency budgets for the first time in years.

Today, the finance committees in the House and the Senate held their first hearings on the operating budget. APRN’s Alexandra Gutierrez was there, and joins us to talk about the Legislature’s approach.

Writer David Holthouse shares his story of being raped as a child during a talk at the Alaska Capitol. Rep. Geran Tarr (D-Anchorage) first introduced Erin’s Law last year. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)

Alaska raised writer David Holthouse has told his story of being sexually abused as a child before. It’s appeared in newspapers, on the radio, on stage in New York City and may even end up on the movie screen.

But when he spoke in the Alaska Capitol building today, it was to support Erin’s Law. If passed, the bill would require public schools statewide to provide age-appropriate K-12 sexual abuse education.

In 1978, Holthouse was 7 years old and his family had recently moved to Anchorage. They befriended another family with a daughter his age and a son in high school. The son was a star athlete, good looking and well spoken. He was nice to Holthouse.

But he changed his demeanor the night he invited Holthouse to his room to play karate.

“He took those ninja throwing stars and he pushed me up against the wall and he started throwing them like a knife thrower at the circus – thunk, thunk – so they landed right next to me saying ‘Don’t move’ – thunk – ‘Don’t move,’” Holthouse says. “And then he took a samurai sword off the wall and he drew it out of the sheath and he put the blade to my neck and he said, ‘If you don’t do exactly what I want, I’m going to kill you.’”

Holthouse was raped, and then threatened with death and the death of his family if he ever told anyone. After a state of shock, Holthouse quickly realized what happened, but he didn’t know what to call it.

“I didn’t have a word for what had happened to me. To go back to McGruff – McGruff had never taught me about ‘safe touch’ and ‘unsafe touch,’ or ‘good secrets’ and ‘bad secrets.’ If I had even been able to come forward and say, ‘That thing we talked about in school – that happened to me.’ I didn’t need any graphic terminology. I just needed a few words and the invitation to speak them,’” Holthouse says.

He says if Erin’s Law had been in effect before he was raped, he might have never been assaulted.

“Perpetrators of these crimes, they rely on shame and silence. They rely on our collective conspiracy of denial and silence about this. And if that silence had already been shattered, which educating every kid in a public school statewide will do, he might have thought that he couldn’t get away with it,” Holthouse says.

But he says he can’t know that for sure. What he does know is that Erin’s Law will prevent kids from being sexually assaulted. He says schools need to have curriculum and talk openly about it.

“I’m not just speaking on my own behalf. I’m speaking for tens of thousands of Alaska children and the adults they’ll grow up to be. And what I’m saying is, ‘Help us,’” Holthouse says.

Democratic Rep. Geran Tarr introduced the bill last year and it appeared poised to become law. Then-Gov. Sean Parnell supported Erin’s Law, the Senate passed it and the House version had 21 co-sponsors. But the bill got stuck in committee.

This year, there are four identical Erin’s Law bills – two from Republicans and two from Democrats. And Gov. Bill Walker wants it on his desk. Democratic Sen. Berta Gardner’s versionwas the first to get a hearing in Senate Education.

Tarr hopes the bill will pass this session. She understands some lawmakers are uncomfortable with Erin’s Law being a requirement, but she says there are likely community resources and private dollars available.

“We approached the Rasmuson Foundation, Alaska Children’s Trust, Mat-Su Health Foundation and just put the idea out there of would they be a resource for helping implement a curriculum and they all responded in a positive way,” Tarr says.

Erin’s Law has passed in 20 states and is pending in 21 others, including Alaska.

For over a hundred years, presidents have used the Antiquities Act to order permanent protections for federal land and resources at sea. Now, Alaska’s congressional delegation is looking to curb that authority.

Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan are co-sponsoring a bill that would require lawmakers to sign off before a president can set up a national monument.

Murkowski introduced similar legislation last year, and the issue has also come up in the U.S. House. But it’s closer to home now that there’s a campaign to get federal protection around the Aleutian Islands.

The boundaries of a marine sanctuary proposed by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. (Credit: PEER)

Rick Steiner, an Anchorage-based shipping advocate, has been leading that effort.

“Overfishing, shipping, fishing, habitat degradation, debris, climate change, what have you,” Steiner says. “They all need to be managed in an integrated way. So, I’m sorry the delegation is having a knee-jerk reaction to this potential.”

They had a similar reaction in December, when Steiner helped nominate more than 550,000 square miles of the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean to become a marine sanctuary.

Unlike monuments, sanctuaries are managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Damaging protected resources inside a sanctuary can lead to civil fines, which the Antiquities Act doesn’t address.

But NOAA ruled there wasn’t enough backing from affected communities in the Aleutians — let alone elected officials — to move forward.

Matt Brookhart is a policy chief in NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.

“We understand what we don’t want to see with a nomination, and that is the nomination comes from a community that is very focused on one or two interest groups,” Brookhart said in an interview this winter.

While conservationists and research groups are still interested in a sanctuary, Steiner is pushing for executive action.

The White House has not responded to his proposal to create marine monuments in the Aleutians, along with the Bering Strait and the Arctic Coastal Plain. But as long as the president has veto power, Steiner says he’s not concerned about any legislation to limit new monuments.

This year’s Iditarod restart will be in Fairbanks for only the second time in the race’s 43-year history. Poor trail conditions prompted the move, and many some mushers are happy with the change. For businesses in the Susitna Valley, however, there will be a significant economic impact.

The changing of the Iditarod restart location to Fairbanks has some mushers excited. Four-time race winner Jeff King told KUAC’s Emily Schwing that he’s looking forward to the new route.

“I’m personally thrilled. Not because of any other reason than I love a new trail, and I love going to new places, so I’m looking forward to some variation,” he said.

The decision to move the start of the race came after Iditarod Trail Committee board members observed very poor conditions on parts of the traditional trail. Talkeetna musher Jerry Sousa says that some sections, like the Dalzell Gorge, are rough even under favorable conditions.

“In a good year, the trail is bad,” Sousa said. ”So, if they say it’s bad and snowmobiles can’t get through there, I certainly don’t want to risk my team mushing through a bad section of trail like that.”

While mushers have expressed approval of the change, it comes with an economic impact to many businesses. Paul Roderick is the owner of Talketna Air Taxi. He says he had more than 30 passengers booked for a flight to the Rainy Pass checkpoint, which are listed on the company’s website at $650 each. Normally, the Iditarod provides a monetary shot in the arm for businesses like his.

“It’s a pretty big hit, especially when you’ve got 30 or 40 people going somewhere,” Roderick said. “So, we’ve got to call them and re-work all the logistics–see what everybody wants to do.”

Paul Roderick says Talkeetna Air Taxi will likely still end up with business as a result of the 2015 Iditarod, and that businesses and villages are working quickly to reorganize logistics.

“They were getting phone calls at midnight last night looking for rooms and figuring out how they were going to switch everything, basically, from the Interior, like McGrath, to basing it solely out of the Yukon River,” he said.

Villages along the traditional Iditarod Trail will also miss out on the boost in visitors and money. Instead, that business will go to another set of villages further to the north. Iditarod CEO Stan Hooley says this year’s race will include checkpoints in Koyukuk and Huslia for the first time.

“Those are two communities with strong ties to the very start of mushing, so it will be exciting from that standpoint and meaningful in a lot of different ways,” Hooley said.

This winter is the second in a row with warmer temperatures and less snow than usual along the Iditarod Trail. Stan Hooley says this is not likely the end of the traditional trail, however.

“What it means for the future, we don’t know,” he said. “We certainly would prefer to travel the traditional Iditarod Trail, and we’ll do everything we can to do that in the future, but this year it’s just not in the cards.”

After the ceremonial start on March 7 in Anchorage, the 2015 Iditarod will begin in earnest in Fairbanks on Monday, March 9.

Recently, about a dozen students gathered at the Cultural Center in Bethel to learn the traditional art of ‘gut sewing’. Seal intestines were prized throughout Yup’ik history for their waterproof performance before modern materials took hold. And now culture bearers are trying to bring back the skill.

For most students, today is the first time they have ever worked with guts.

Their 71-year-old instructor however, Mary Tunuchuk, has a lifetime of experience with the traditional material. She says imarnitet or “gut parkas” were critical for survival in her youth.

“The waterproof gut parkas were very important for men while hunting in the ocean. The way it reacts to moisture makes it a more effective insulated raincoat than most modern raincoats. In my first memories, women would learn to make raincoats, and other waterproof items before they get married, to ensure a better chance at survival. These days I never see anyone practice the art anymore,” said Tunuchuk.

Mary Tunuchuk applying wax to thread. (Photo by Dean Swope/KYUK)

Revitalizing the practice is part of the goal of the workshop, hosted by Bethel’s Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center and sponsored by the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center and the Anchorage Museum. Besides parkas, seal intestines were used to make all kinds of waterproof items like bags, mittens, boot-linings and even windows. Curator Sarah Owens explains students will be using two kinds of material.

“There’s going to be a mixture of Native students who will be using seal intestine that Mary’s providing, but there’s also going to be non-Native students like myself and we will be using a substitute. We’ll be using hog intestine to sew with because it’s actually illegal for us to be sewing the seal intestine,” said Owens.

Tunuchak explains the process starts with the raw seal intestines, which are washed. She uses a dull scraper to remove the soft fleshy material from a membrane, which later is painstakingly cleaned of any flesh or blood. It’s washed in brine or freshwater before being inflated like a long balloon and hung to dry.

Tunuchuk taught the class the basics of sewing and the use of taperrnaq or grass as spacers between seams.

“It’s not just any grass, it’s beach grass, they are flexible and we use them around the seams so we could tighten the thread without breaking the membrane. You have a tighter more reinforced waterproof seam, without tearing the intestine,” said Tunuchuk.

The students bent the edges of the material with their mouths, using their saliva to make the material more flexible and hold its shape while sewing.

Students end up having made an amber colored translucent window. In ancient times, the window would have served as more of a skylight, called tanqin, Yup’ik for ‘something that brightens’.

Bethel resident, Annie Roach says she’s at the class because she wanted to connect with her culture.

“I’ve heard about some of the traditional skills and practices. I’ve always wanted to learn and now I understand a small part of it,” said Roach.

Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center staff say there are plans for more workshops exploring traditional skills, like a doll making class in the last week of March, and a fish skin crafting class later in April. The seal intestines for the class were provided by Mary Tunuchuk, who processed the intestine from seals caught by her children ad grandchildren.

This story starts with Shana. Shana’s a doctor in Nome and she agreed to sit down with me to talk about one of my favorite things, love.

“I definitely believed in soul mates when I was younger and that was something that started to fade. I started to give up on the idea of soul mates,” she said. “There’s a lot of reasons I came to Alaska. I wanted to go to a place where I could do a lot of medicine, and out here we do pretty much everything. But also thinking, that potentially the same kind of person who like adventure and wants to serve in a community that’s under-served…who knows what they would be doing, but potentially I could meet that type of person in Alaska.”

Now meet Dave. Dave currently lives in Nondalton, but he originally came to Alaska several years ago, drawn by the flying and teaching possibilities. Last year, he was a teacher out on the island of Little Diomede.

Dave: “I wanted to go somewhere where there was a high teacher turnover rate and stick around, you know, actually invest in the community and the kids.”

Kristin: “Alright, so what were some of your general beliefs about love?”

Their paths crossed last May when Shana traveled to Little Diomede for a medical trip and stayed in the school.

“We were getting settled in and this guy came by and he was wearing this Hawaiian shirt that he calls his island shirt because he lives out on the island of Diomede,” Shana said. “Had a mustache, longish hair and the brightest eyes and a big smile.”

“She smiled and had this amazing smile that just about knocked me out, so I turned around and walked out of the room,” Dave said.

“My impression was, ‘oh he’s really busy.’ He was like, ‘hey you guys okay? Great I’ll see you later.’ And I was like, wow that’s really nice to check on us, but he must be also really busy,” Shana said.

They didn’t really think they’d see each other again, but Before Shana left they traded blog sites.

“His blog is like the soul mate of my blog,” she said.

Blog comments turned into short emails, which turned into longer and longer emails.

Shana: We shared our lives with each other and they were similar in a lot of ways. But then I sent him a poem…”

Dave: “This poem, one of the lines in this poem, was..uh,oh something, what did it say?”

Shana: It’s a poem by Hafiz who’s a Sufi poet, mystic from Persia and it says plant so that your own heart will grow, love so God will think…

Dave: “Ah, I got kin in that body”

Shana: “Ah, I got kin in that body” I should start inviting that soul over for coffee and rolls. Sing because this is a food our starving world needs, laugh because that is the purest sound. And I said, it reminds me of you, especially that part that says, “I should start inviting that soul over for coffee and rolls.”

Dave: “What got me was she said this poem reminded her of me and I was like…wait…could that mean that maybe she’s interested in me, maybe she kind of likes me.”

Yes, it turned out Shana did like Dave. They had their first date in Anchorage where they went flying. They had their second date in Nome where Dave secretly got her ring size…and for their third date, Dave flew up to Nome again.

Dave: “I’m sitting there in that 737 coming into Nome, I looked out the window and I saw the most stunning, amazing, beautiful, low sunlight coming in over the Bering Sea.”

Shana: “It was a gorgeous day, it was right before the solstice, Dec 20th, the sun was shining it was one of the brightest days we had had.”

Dave: “And I saw that and said, well this is it. We gotta go for a walk. So I kept it simple, asked her “Will you marry me?” And she kind of gasped and said…”

Shana: “Honestly, my first thought was “Are you serious?” But I knew that couldn’t’ be the first thing I say.”

Dave: “She knelt down beside me and said, yes. A million times yes.”

Shana: “Yes, a million times yes.”

This segment is part of KNOM’s Story49 love series. If you want to hear the full version and other stories of Western Alaskan couples, you can visit knom dot org.

Right now, the Legislature is facing a deficit that some leaders are describing as a “$4 billion problem.” With oil prices half what they were a year ago, lawmakers are having to cut agency budgets for the first time in years.

Today, the finance committees in the House and the Senate held their first hearings on the operating budget.

Alaska Writer David Holthouse Shows Support For Erin’s Law

Lisa Phu, KTOO

Alaska raised writer David Holthouse has told his story of being sexually abused as a child before. It’s appeared in newspapers, on the radio and on stage in New York City.

But when he spoke in the Alaska Capitol building today, it was to support Erin’s Law, a bill that would require public schools statewide to provide age-appropriate K-12 sexual abuse education.

Sullivan Stands With House on DHS Funding

Liz Ruskin, APRN – Washington DC

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security will run out February 27, unless Congress can resolve an impasse over immigration policy riders the House added to a funding bill.

BOEM Assessment Suggests Shell’s Chukchi Leases Remain Intact

Lauren Rosenthal, KUCB – Unalaska

Federal regulators are recommending that Shell’s disputed oil leases in the Chukchi Sea be left intact. That’s the conclusion of a new assessment of Lease Sale 193 – the 2008 auction where Shell picked more than $2 billion worth of Arctic drilling prospects.

Alaska Delegation Seeks New Limits On National Monuments

Lauren Rosenthal, KUCB – Unalaska

For over a hundred years, presidents have used the Antiquities Act to order permanent protections for federal land and resources at sea. Now, Alaska’s senators are looking to curb that authority before the Obama administration tries to apply it in the 49th State.

As The Iditarod Start Shifts North, So Does The Economic Boon

Phillip Manning, KTNA – Talkeetna

Moving the Iditarod start from Anchorage to Fairbanks will impact businesses across the state.

Learning to Sew With Seal Guts

Charles Enoch, KYUK – Bethel

Students at the Cultural Center in Bethel recently learned the traditional art of ‘gut sewing’. Seal intestines were prized throughout Yup’ik history for their waterproof performance. And a culture bearer from Chefornak is teaching the skill.

Story49: Love Series – Coffee and Rolls

Kristin Leffler, KNOM – Nome

Valentine’s day is just a few days away. KNOM Producer Kristin Leffler found this story of two people who had given up on the idea of soul mates until they met each other on an island in the middle of the Bering Sea:

AVTEC, the state’s vocational and technical school with campuses in Seward and Anchorage, will be losing programs due to the budget ax. AVTEC’s three allied health programs will be eliminated by the end of this year, according to Paloma Harbour, administrative services division director with the state Department of Labor and Workforce development.

“As a part of the governor’s endorsed budget, all agencies were asked to contribute to the reduction because of the revenue shortfall for the state. Our departments contribution was overall an eight percent reduction to the department, so it wasn’t just AVTEC. AVTEC’s share of the reduction was just over $450,000 in state funds alone.”

Harbour says allied health program cuts will save the other AVTEC programs.

“The choice wasn’t made lightly, but because it was one of the most expensive programs, based on statutory requirements on instructors to students and other expenses related to the program, it was the one they could cut to meet their target reductions. If they were to cut other programs, they would have had to cut multiple other programs. ”

Harbour says board of nursing requirements make hiring multiple instructors a necessity for the health programs.

AVTEC has three nursing programs. The registered nursing program is coming to an end in July, anyway, because it has lost federal funding. Two other programs, licensed practical nurse and nursing assistant, will end in November because of the state cuts.

AVTEC’s three allied health programs combined serve about 140 students a year. Harbour says the school partners with Cook Inlet Tribal Council on funding for the registered nurse program, and it is possible that that could continue if AVTEC can find alternate funding sources for its share of the costs.

“One of the things that AVTEC’s looking into right now, is the Cook Inlet Tribal Council, who is the partner that was helping to supply federal funds to support the registered nurse program, they are looking to again apply for federal funds, and if they are successful, they want to continue some partnership.”

Currently enrolled students in the nursing assistant and licensed practical nurse classes will be able to finish classes before the closures go into effect.

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security will run out February 27, unless Congress can resolve an impasse over immigration policy riders the House included in its funding bill. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan today stood with conservative lawmakers, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, calling on the Senate to pass the House bill.

Sullivan told reporters at the Capitol he wants to work with President Obama. In fact, he said, he was heading to the White House that afternoon to watch him sign a veterans mental health bill. But when it comes to Homeland Security funding, Sullivan says Democrats shouldn’t support Obama’s immigration policies.

“And I think it’s very important that we make the case that this is something the American people don’t support and it’s something the Constitution of the United States does not authorize,” he said at a press conference that included Republican Sens. Cruz, Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, along with a host of House conservatives.

The House bill blocks funding for executive orders that would temporarily shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled whether President Obama has the authority under the Constitution to issue the orders, which opponents call “executive amnesty.”

Senate Democrats are demanding a bill free of the funding blocks, and time is running out. Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, among other Republicans on the Senate leadership team, said the House needs to come up with another solution because the House-passed bill doesn’t have the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate. But Cruz and the other lawmakers at the press conference want to hold firm.

“The House of Representatives has done its job,” Cruz said. A flurry of camera shutters followed each of his hand gestures. “It has voted on funding for DHS. And Senate Democrats are playing partisan politics with our national security by preventing the Senate from even taking up that funding bill.”

Senate Democrats say it’s the Republicans risking furloughs at DHS. The Department includes the Coast Guard, the immigration service, border protection and FEMA.

Jeff King won the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race back in 1989. He is also well-known on the Iditarod trail, having won Alaska’s other 1,000 mile sled dog race four times.

This year, he returned to the Quest, but decided to scratch from the race after only 300 miles.

This year, Jeff King signed up for both of Alaska’s 1000-mile sled dog races. Over the year’s he says he’s seen other dog teams improve after their first 1000-miler.

“This one wasn’t going to make them stronger, this one was going to need recovery,” King said.

When King left the Pelly Crossing checkpoint, temperatures were frigid – between minus 30 and minus 40 degrees. That was still the case when he reached the Stepping Stone hospitality stop.

“After 16 hours, I fully expected to leave,” King said. “I also expected the temperature not to go down to the lowest I had seen since I had arrived and when I stepped out on the porch at 6 a.m., after having fed the dogs three times, food that was really intended for Scroggie creek and Eureka, it was 47 below zero.”

When King first started running the Yukon Quest in the mid-1980’s, those temperatures were the norm, but King says that’s was never fun for him.

“I don’t think fun is the word,” he said. “I think I shared the mentality of wanting to be the toughest and I wanted to know that I could endure and overcome these challenges.”

But King says he’s changed after 40 years of working with sled dogs.

“I love having a fast dog team that loves me and nothing anymore will tempt me into jeopardizing that,” he said.

King is used to running teams that move down the trail between 8-10 miles per hour, but subzero temperatures slowed dogs teams to nearly half that as they approached Dawson City.

“I don’t need another trophy; I don’t need another pay check,” he said. “I want to have fun and that was not fun.”

King says his dogs are recovering well. He also says had the weather been warmer, the race’s outcome could be different.

“I don’t expect any of the teams that make it the whole way to be very competitive again this year, would be my guess,” he said.

King admitted that prior to the race, he confided in close friends that he planned to scratch if conditions hard on his dog team. He wouldn’t say for sure whether he would return for the Quest again in the future.